[G1 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ezterry:
Um... The compcache instability scares me a bit

Compcache has had issues (maybe still does) where the first time you enable it the phone crashes.. but then works fine with Compcache on reboot. Otherwise it really ought no make the phone unstable. (it may or may not speed things up depending on how memory is being used.. usually however it allows 12MB of memory that is rarely used to be compressed, allowing a little more active memory to be utilized) You may want to look into wiping dalvik-cache both on the internal memory and SD card:

Enter console and run (this will restart the phone)

rm -rf /data/dalvik-cache/*
rm -rf /cache/dalvik-cache/*
rm -rf /sd-ext/dalvik-cache/*
reboot

if you get an error about no files found thats not an issue; but other errors may indicate a problem.

This may help system stability (with or without compcache) .. but won't do anything about the battery life (nor speed unless something was seriously wrong)

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Unfortunately you will either need to erase all your apps and just run stock CM5 [maybe slowly restore your apps you really need] -- OR -- be very patient and debug whatever application(s) are causing issues on your phone (and maybe complain to the dev for failing to read/understand google's documentation on how to write android applications.. not that some of the google apps haven't quite figured that out until recently)

Thus again the main question is what is running on your phone.. The places I mentioned before allow you to see the services (most of which usually restart if you run the related application again) but not strictly all the details to look for.

Example 1 An widget service is likely holding onto memory starving timer services (those not listed) and swapping out other services (phone/launcher making everything feel slow) At the same time the widget is not very active usually and may not connect to the internet at all; thus may not reduce battery life.

Example 2 An IM client on the other hand may requires a service to keep TCP/IP connections alive, and if not coded properly may be very persistent and cause a slow continual stream of data from your phone requiring a large amount of power to keep the phone on 2G/Edge.

Example 3 A Task killer an kill tasks that re-spawn, or kill a task in use if it doesn't know better causing things to behave in strange ways.. so can killing services/applications from the setting screens btw.. but at least that is a one off by user decision not a automatic operation in the background. Tasks when re-spawned may require more data from the internet thus more power to 2G/Edge

User: Then the one that causes me the most problems: A user that keeps the phone in his/her pocket rather than surfing the web, checking XDA, or continuously checking the battery level is using the device less thus will have longer battery life. (careful to not fall into this trap)

Other Ideas:

SetCPU: set the sleep CPU low in profiles (sleep for me is 245/160)[/*]

Verify End action: Settings->End Button Behavior->Go to sleep[/*]

Set longer periods between polls in applications that poll the net (example twitter every 10 or 20mins.. not 5)[/*]

Larger net transfers on wifi if available (example tell newsrob to sync on wifi only) wifi drains the battery faster than idle, but is much cheaper if larger amounts of data are involved.[/*]

As you can see many things will impact the system. You will need to find the ones eating your battery

Another helpful screen for debugging this may be Settings->Spare Parts->Battery History and Settings->Spare Parts->Usage Statistics

I get between 4h and 12h batter life under semi-normal conditions. 4h = surfing 3g + tappatalk + games.. 12h check email/tweat if i get one.. otherwise stays in my pocket. I've seen my test phone hang out for days on a 2g network without data. (so you can always set your apn type to mms if you just need it to be a phone for many hours.. mms keeps mms support btw)

Ebuddy (and most other MSN/AIM/ect chat clients is frequently one of the biggest problems on my phone.. so if I need more battery those are the first to go.. and whomever it is can poke me on gtalk/txt/or wait

Good luck in your search.. Took me a while to make cm5 work as long as cm4.. most of it was mis-behaving apps that I either know to shut off when I need longer battery life.. or have found replacements for.. or avoid widget functionality if the widget was misconfigured. (